


our theory of relativity

by maquina



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Space, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 07:44:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5619103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maquina/pseuds/maquina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a deep space mission to explore distant exoplanets, Jean and Armin are reunited after years of cryosleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	our theory of relativity

**Author's Note:**

> For [artishishblog](artishishblog.tumblr.com); you said you liked space related stuff so I gathered up my love for all things sci-fi and this is what resulted. Happy New Year!

The first sensation that comes back to Armin this time is the cold, right down to the very marrow of his bones. It takes hold of his whole body in its icy grasp, and he seizes and gasps for air like a fish out of water, drowning in the still draining cryofluid.  
  
“You’re alright,” Hanji coos, leaning over the edge of the pod to remove the protective cover from his eyes. “Just a second more, and I’ll have you breathing on your own again.” She’s the last face they see before they go under and usually the first person there when it’s time to wake up. He’s never asked how or when she sleeps, but she’s also never looked a moment older than the day he first met her.  
  
When his throat finally stops spasming and he takes a heaving breath, she grins and adjusts the goggles on her head with satisfaction. “Nicely done, Armin,” she says as she taps away at her handheld device, no doubt updating his file with his vital signs. Even though he doesn’t think he’s much deserving of her praise, as fragile as he feels sitting up in his pod, Hanji always makes each waking out to be a success.  
  
Familiar hands help him out, his legs too weak to be of much use just yet. A blanket gets draped over his shoulders, made of a roughspun fabric he recalls from his childhood but knows to be a rarity nowadays when everything else is slick lines and streamlined functionality. It’s a luxury, so he pulls it tight around his body, shivering as he drips onto the steel plated floor of the cryobay. He endures a wave of nausea that nearly sends him reeling, but Mikasa holds him upright. His moment of disorientation lasts as long as it takes for the pods on either side of him to complete their own waking process. He can barely make eye contact and nod to the Commander, who cuts an imposing figure as he walks up the center of the room, checking in with his crew as they emerge from stasis.  
  
“Let’s get you warmed up,” Mikasa whispers in his ear as soon as he feels ready to move. She guides him with a gentle hand on his forearm and helps him dry and dress with dexterity. Judging by her own wet hair, she couldn’t have emerged long before him, but Mikasa had always endured cryosleep better than most. Armin’s throat still burns, so he’s quiet throughout the whole process, movements slow as his body catches up with the waking world.  
  
When he finally finds his voice, he asks, “How long?”  
  
Mikasa’s lips thin for a brief moment before she replies, “3 years.” A minor setback considering two years had been the initial estimate given their original trajectory. Mikasa confirms this as she continues with, “There was a miscalculation in the distance to the system we were headed to, but our course has been corrected and we’re due to arrive in a few hours. All preliminary reports align with the first data received on this planet.”  
  
Armin tries to smile as he says, “This could be the one.”  
  
“Could be,” Mikasa echoes, though her expression remains neutral. It’d always been Eren and Armin looking out at the stars and dreaming of a bigger tomorrow, with a sky and a sea and real green lands. But she was still here with them. While she might have been content to stay on the crumbling space station that raised them, her desire to see them all safe and together was greater than any misgivings she may have once had about the Survey Corps.  
  
As they walk through the ship that’s been their home since the Corps set out on a mission to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, Armin’s hope trickles back to him in fits and starts. It feels less like muscle memory and more like the stomach-dropping sensation of nearly missing a step but recovering in time -- a lot of fear and a little elated surprise. He runs a hand along the wall, tunes into the subsensory vibrations of the ship’s engine at warp, catches a glimpse of the endless sea of stars outside as they pass by an observation deck. Despite the constant setbacks they’ve faced - the dead-end exoplanets, dwindling support, and the pervasive presence of humanity’s plague wherever they go - Armin finds comfort in this ship and her crew, in knowing that they’re all looking for home.  
  
But all of that pales in comparison to the emotion that slams into Armin when the doors to his room slide open and he’s greeted by Jean Kirstein’s crooked smile and sheepish, “Surprise!” with arms outstretched in welcome.  
  
Armin gasps, laughing in surprised delight, equal parts relieved and shy because Jean is the one thing he hadn’t let himself hope for. He almost can’t stand the way his heart pounds in his chest, a thunderous beat against his ribcage that floods his system with adrenaline. The last time he’d seen Jean, Jean had been near delirious from fever, his body struck by side effects from extended exposure to a contaminated cryochamber. Now he stands in front of him, healthy and whole again.  
  
“You could have told me,” Armin says accusingly to Mikasa, who only raises her shoulders in a small shrug, her lips quirked in a rueful smile.  
  
“Welcome back, Jean,” she says, and the two of them nod at each other. She gives Armin’s shoulder a squeeze as she turns to leave, murmuring, “I’m going to get Eren.”  
  
He watches her go, the doors closing behind her, leaving him alone with Jean. Armin knows he’s gaping, likely with an embarrassing expression on his face, but he can’t seem to dim his smile. Taking a few shaky steps toward Jean, Armin feels the absence of Mikasa’s support, but when he stumbles, Jean is there to steady him, his hands warm on Armin’s waist.  
  
“You remembered the code to my door,” is all that Armin can think to say, looking up at Jean through his lashes.  
  
“‘course I did,” Jean replies. He cups Armin’s cheek, and Armin turns his face into the touch, closing his eyes against the rush of emotion that sticks in his throat.  
  
“That was 2 cycles ago.” Four years total of deep space travel and exploration, and Jean looks like he’d never needed the extra time.  
  
“Feels like yesterday to me,” Jean murmurs as he leans in, capturing Armin’s lips in a soft, sweet kiss. His fingers sweep across Armin’s jaw and into his hair, drawing Armin ever closer. Armin becomes pliable in his arms, losing all traces of military posture and inhibitions to seek shelter in Jean’s warmth. He drags his fingers down Jean’s back, pressing against every knob in his spine, and he smiles into the kiss as Jean shivers.  
  
Jean’s touch soothes the ache that had lodged itself right beneath Armin’s ribcage the moment he’d had to let him go. Like a knife stuck in his side, it’d given him stitches every time he’d thought that Jean might not ever wake up, not if the damage had been too great. With no time to waste to get Jean treated, they’d been separated when they least expected it, with no idea as to how long it’d be until next time. Even Armin didn’t know how to be so selfish as to demand Jean’s presence the last time he’d woken to find the Captain chose to leave him in stasis, and so the time had passed between them.  
  
“I really missed you,” he whispers. It’s a vulnerable admission, one that leaves him feeling flushed and exposed, so he ducks and hides his face, rests his cheek against Jean’s chest just to hear the way his heart speeds up.  
  
Jean presses a kiss to the top of his head. His voice is low and rough when he says, “Going off cycle, not being here for you, it all bothers me more than you know, but… I’m okay now, I won’t leave you again.”  
  
Rarely do Armin’s words fail him, but Jean has been his exception since the day Armin realized their friendship was derailing into unknown territory. He can only nod, “You’d have liked the last planet,” Armin says instead, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “Except for the sulfurous sleet, that was awful.”  
  
“Tell me more about that sulfurous sleet, please,” Jean teases, kissing the tip of his nose. Discreetly, he wipes away at the tears that escape as Armin blinks away the wetness in his eyes.  
  
“Let me just pull up my old notes on it,” Armin deadpans.  
  
Jean laughs, a sound that fills the room. Shaking his head, he says, “Really though, what did I miss? I know how Connie and Sasha are but they were making me feel a little left out.”  
  
Armin lights up. “Actually, I’ve been holding on to something for you.” It takes him a minute but he digs up a dusty holo from a messy desk drawer. He takes Jean’s hand and pulls him over to his bed, where they sit cross-legged with their knees knocking and the holo in between them.  
  
The recording is hazy for a moment before it focuses on a vidscreen, where Jean’s mother sits on the other side of the galaxy, smiling. Jean makes a noise of surprise, jerking forward as if he can touch her image, his fingertips passing through the holo before he pulls back. She looks aged, crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes pronounced, but she also looks healthy and well.  
  
“You’ve been in recovery for about three months now, Jean. I don’t know when you’ll get this message, but it’s your birthday and I couldn’t imagine not speaking to you, even if you can’t be here. So happy birthday, my son,” She’s tearing up now, and in the present, Jean is too. Armin takes hold of Jean’s hand, lacing their fingers together, and Jean squeezes his hand gratefully as his mother’s message comes to an end with, “I know I’ll see you again. Call me again as soon as you wake up. I love you.”  
  
“Damn, Armin, you could have warned me,” Jean says roughly, wiping at his eyes with his free hand. “Is the rest of this--”  
  
Armin shushes him as the holo jumps and cuts to a shaky shot of Delta team, Armin himself ducking into the image once everyone is grouped up. Sasha’s the one leading, counting out three, two, one, for all of them to chorus, “Happy birthday, Jean!” and Eren shouts out, “I’m older than you now, jerk, so get ready to follow my orders when you get back!”  
  
Jean groans audibly, “He’s right, dammit,” and Armin laughs.  
  
Now it jumps forward, and it’s Armin sitting in his room, saying, “You’ve been sleeping for a year now, and we just woke up from our own nap. They say they’d rather be safe and give you more time, and I can’t exactly disagree with that, so…” The Armin in the video looks off into the distance, frowning. “I guess we’ll see you next time, whenever that is.”  
  
Despite the somber tone, the holo begins to run through a series of clips of their crew going about their daily life onboard, interspersed with views of foreign planets. Flora and fauna of varying shapes and sizes, colors and composition, none entirely right for human colonization but fascinating to discover nonetheless. Jean even exclaims and leans forward to peer at the image of a sullen Eren shouting, “You’re lucky you missed this one, Kirstein!” as they were buffeted by winds and the very sleet he’d mocked only earlier.  
  
“You weren’t kidding,” he says in awe.  
  
The series of clips begin to wind down after that, becoming more mundane in their contents -- a shot of Armin reading in a secluded corner of the observation deck; a competitive game night in the rec room; a view panning over their thriving greenhouse, which delights Jean because he can see they implemented the changes he’d recommended for the irrigation system. Jean gets a final view of his friends, sitting together in the rec room, all wearing old Christmas gear they must have picked up on a human space station. Annie rolls her eyes and says, “There’s no logic to Christmas in space,” but Connie and Sasha loudly boo her and burst into an off-key rendition of an old Terran Christmas song.  
  
The final shot is of Armin in the observation deck again, speaking quietly even though he’s alone. “We’re about to go under again. They’re saying it’s going to be longer this time, maybe two years, which is why I think the Commander told the Captain to let us celebrate. Still, it worked. Everyone’s happy.”  
  
Armin feels uncomfortable watching this particular message, but that eases when he catches the small smile playing on Jean’s lips. He looks pleased as vid-Armin leans in close to say, “Happy Holidays, Jean. See you soon.” The holo cuts out.  
  
“I know that was a mess, I didn’t really plan it out but--” Jean cuts him off with a bruising kiss, pulling him into his lap and nearly crushing the holo in the process. Armin laughs into his mouth, and it turns into an appreciative noise as Jean’s hands slip under his shirt and splay across the small of his back, his touch searing against his bare skin.  
  
“You’re amazing,” Jean says in between kisses. Hearing that makes Armin’s heart swell and feel like bursting. Once again he doesn’t know the right thing to say, his words not enough, so Armin settles for simply showing Jean how much he loves him. 

* * *

This time Armin wakes surrounded by warmth. Curled up against Jean’s side, soothed by the hand caressing his the bare skin of his side, drawing circles and infinity loops, Armin feels like he’s in a dream. He comes back to his senses in small increments, blinking away the foggy haze of real sleep, not the disorientation of cryo.  
  
“We should get up,” he mumbles, even as he throws an arm around Jean and tucks his face against the side of his neck.  
  
Jean shushes him lazily. “If we’re quiet, maybe they’ll forget about us completely.”  
  
Armin lets out a soft ‘hah’, knowing full well that the only reason no one has come to bother them already is thanks to Mikasa keeping them at bay. He wants this moment of reunion to last forever, with the two of them wrapped up in each other, suspended in time, but he knows it must be coming to an end sooner rather than later.  
  
As soon as he completes the thought, the intercom in the room dings and Petra’s voice comes online: “We’re approaching exoplanet SC-104 b. Delta team, prepare for deployment.”  
  
They sigh in unison, which makes Armin laugh again. “That’s our cue,” he says. Armin rolls over and off the bed, dragging his sheets with him as he goes stand at his viewscreen. He ignores Jean’s weak protests to stare out at the planet emerging from the sea of stars. The side they’re viewing is cast in darkness, as they make their approach around its trio of moons.  
  
Jean shuffles up behind him and hums, peering out with nonchalant curiosity. “Looks like a giant blueberry. Bet you 50 units there’s methane gas trapped in its poles.”  
  
Armin smiles. “Now you’re just being optimistic.” He presses his fingers to the few inches of glass separating him from the dark expanse of space, looking like he could take one more step and freefall into the planet below. “Goldilocks zone, a good balance in temperature and climate, and no crazy weather phenomena yet reported.” Armin glances back at Jean. “Would you bet on our luck today?”  
  
“With you at my side? Definitely,” Jean replies, wrapping his arms around Armin and resting his chin on top of his head. They fit together perfectly, Armin leaning back into Jean as he watches the planet grow bigger and bigger until it takes up the entire viewscreen and the ship has fallen into its orbit. This close, Armin can see multiple landmasses, what looks like a potential storm system in the south, which will undoubtedly place their expedition in the north, where the atmosphere looks much calmer. Already his brain is pulling him away from the here and now with Jean and into the work that must be done.  
  
The intercom dings again, this time requesting everyone’s presence in the Command Room, the final call for the start of their next mission. But as Armin dresses and keeps catching glimpses of Jean in the periphery, his heart is light. 

* * *

Transport down to the planet is a lively affair. Connie and Sasha are the most loudly exuberant of the bunch, but when Armin spots a small smile on Mikasa’s usually somber face, he realizes that they’re all the same kind of optimists. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t have so many missions under their belt, planet after planet explored for potential colonization.  
  
When the shuttle begins its rattling descent through the planet’s atmosphere and into the new world below, Armin joins his team in activating his EVA suit for the unfamiliar environment. Before he can slip his helmet over his head, Jean touches his elbow to get his attention and dips his head to press their foreheads together in a brief gesture of affection. Although Armin hides his pleased smile behind a tinted visor, he still falls in line beside Jean as the shuttle makes its landing.  
  
As the cargo bay doors slide open, Armin takes Jean’s hand and smiles when Jean gives his hand a squeeze. “This is it,” he says, nearly breathless with excitement, and together, they take the first step outside.


End file.
